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Knight, C., Patterson, M. orcid.org/0000-0003-0984-3744 and Dawson, J. (2019) Work engagement interventions can be effective: A systematic review. European Journal of Workand Organisational Psychology, 28 (3). pp. 348-372. ISSN 1359-432X

https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2019.1588887

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Effectiveness of work engagement interventions

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Work engagement interventions can be effective: A systematic review

Caroline Knighta*, Malcolm Pattersona, and Jeremy Dawsona

aCentre for Transformative Work Design, Future of Work Institute, Curtin University, 78

Murray Street, Perth, WA 6009, Australia; ORCID: 0000-0001-9894-7750

aInstitute of Work Psychology, Sheffield University Management School, Conduit Rd,

Sheffield, S10 1FL; email: [email protected], phone: +44 (0) 114 222 3244

aInstitute of Work Psychology, Sheffield University Management School, Conduit Rd,

Sheffield, S10 1FL; email: [email protected]; phone; +44 (0) 114 222 3238

* Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Dr. Caroline Knight at the

Centre for Transformative Work Design, Future of Work Institute, Curtin University, Perth,

WA, 6009, Australia; e-mail: [email protected]; phone: +61 (8) 9266 4994

This work was supported by a bursary from the Economic and Social Research Council

(ESRC), UK. We confirm that no conflict of interest arose in conducting or reporting this

research and that we have complied fully with APA ethical standards.

mailto:[email protected]


1

Abstract

Work engagement is associated with important individual and organisational outcomes (e.g.,

employee health and well-being, performance). This narrative systematic review aims to

synthesise the increasing number of work engagement interventions and inform future

research by exploring: (1) the specific intervention foci, delivery methods and content of

engagement interventions; (2) intervention effectiveness; and (3) underlying mediators and

moderators. A systematic search for interventions employing a validated engagement

measure revealed 40 studies. Five were personal resource building, twelve job resource

building, three leadership training, eighteen health promotion, and two job and personal

resource building. Twenty (50%) studies observed significant positive effects on work

engagement, two (5%) had a negative effect, and eighteen (45%) had no effect. Job and

personal resources, job demands and well-being were important mediators. Moderators

included the specific intervention focus and delivery method, employee participation,

manager support, and intervention level (top-down vs bottom-up). Bottom-up interventions,

and job crafting and mindfulness interventions particularly, were most successful.

Implementation difficulties were common, including poor response and attrition rates, and

adverse factors (e.g. organisational restructuring, redundancy, economic downturn). We

highlight implications for research and practice and stress the need to test underlying theories

to build knowledge around how, why, and when interventions work.

Keywords: work engagement interventions; job demands-resources; wellbeing; intervention

implementation; systematic review


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Introduction

Work engagement is commonly viewed in academic literature as a positive, psychological

state consisting of vigour, dedication and absorption in work tasks (Schaufeli, Salanova,

Gonzalez-Roma, and Bakker, 2002). The interest in engagement continues to thrive, with

both academics and practitioners actively investing in the concept (e.g. Bailey, Madden,

Alfes & Fletcher, 2015; MacLeod & Clarke, 2009), driven by the importance of work

engagement for key individual and organisational outcomes, such as health and well-being,

performance, and safety (e.g. Bailey, et al., 2015; Halbesleben, 2010; Nahrgang, Morgeson &

Hofmann, 2010). Increasing work engagement has therefore become an important

consideration for many organisations, and within the last decade, the field has advanced

towards developing and evaluating interventions.

A recent meta-analysis of 20 work engagement interventions found that interventions, and

particularly group interventions, are effective (Knight, Patterson & Dawson, 2017a). No

moderation effects were found for the type of intervention or whether the organisation

involved was privately owned or publically funded. There were also no significant

differences in effect size between randomised and non-randomised studies or studies adjusted

for age and gender and those not. Another review narratively synthesised the engagement

literature as a whole and found that amongst nine work engagement interventions, six

demonstrated an effect, one demonstrated no effect, and two highlighted ‘complexities and

ambiguities associated with interventions’ (Bailey et al., 2017, p.39).

The present systematic review substantially builds on these findings by incorporating recent

interventions, reflecting the rapidly increasing evidence-base in this field, and contributes


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new, in-depth insights and knowledge around the characteristics of engagement interventions,

how and why they work, and the difficulties faced during their implementation. We provide a

more detailed synthesis of the specific intervention foci, delivery methods and content of

interventions, their quality (a term we use here to refer to study design & associated factors

such as sample sizes & type of control group), degree of successful implementation and

effectiveness. These factors are, as yet, underexplored in the literature. This knowledge is

important for guiding the efficient deployment of resources towards interventions appropriate

for specific contexts and participants and which are most likely to yield positive results. This

review responds to a call by Bailey, et al. (2015) to further knowledge around which

engagement interventions are most effective and under which conditions.

The literature clearly demonstrates the benefit of a qualitative exploration of how and why

interventions work, which can allow, for instance, a more detailed exploration of study

quality and degree of intervention implementation. Nielsen and Miraglia (2017) highlight

how qualitative evaluations prevent erroneous conclusions from purely statistical evaluations,

guide analysis of underlying mediators and moderators, and can investigate what kinds of

intervention components work in different contexts, and why. For example, need satisfaction

could be a mediator (Deci & Ryan, 2001), employee participation could be a moderator

(Nielsen, Randall, Holten & Gonzalex, 2010), and intervention components could include

group programmes, psycho-education, or goal-setting (e.g. Knight et al., 2017). These could

be more or less effective for different groups of people, such as employees or managers.

Further, context may impact the effectiveness of different components, with hospitals, offices

and factories, for instance, all presenting very different environments which may require

particular intervention designs.


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This review goes beyond a statistical assessment of whether interventions do work, to

investigate how, why and when they work (Nielsen & Miraglia, 2017). In so doing, we

incorporate a wider range of study designs than is possible when meta-analysis is the end

goal, and thus capture the evidence-base more broadly. The heterogeneity of the studies

included renders meta-analysis inappropriate (Snape, Meads, Bagnall, Tregaskis &

Mansfield, 2016). We therefore capitalise on our systematic, narrative review method for

providing in-depth analysis. For example, we include studies without control or comparison

groups and which may not have published all the data necessary to enable meta-analysis.

These studies may offer much in terms of contextual factors and mediators and moderators

which may underlie intervention effectiveness but would remain unexplored if a pure meta-

analytic analysis was undertaken (Nielsen & Miraglia, 2017). A particular contribution of this

review is therefore in its inclusivity of work engagement interventions and its exploration of

intervention design, effectiveness and mediators and moderators.

To build on current knowledge and the findings of Knight and colleagues (2017a), we use the

intervention typology developed by these authors as a framework to analyse our considerably

expanded set of studies. In particular, we aim to: (1) explore the specific intervention foci,

delivery methods, and content of work engagement interventions; (2) review the effectiveness

of work engagement interventions; and (3) explore mediators and moderators underlying

work engagement interventions. Our focus on intervention mediators and moderators goes

considerably beyond the scope of previous reviews. The only previous review on engagement

interventions focused on effectiveness and a limited number of moderators (Knight et al.,

2017a). This review goes beyond effectiveness to explore how and why they work,

unpacking a number of mediators and moderators in the process and highlighting avenues for


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future research. We begin by briefly reviewing work engagement theory and the literature on

work engagement interventions.

Work engagement theory

Kahn (1990) originally conceptualised engagement in terms of employees being physically,

cognitively and emotionally involved in their work roles. Since then, Schaufeli and

colleagues’ definition of work engagement as comprising vigour (energy and mental

resilience in work), dedication (high involvement and enthusiasm in work) and absorption

(full concentration in work) has arguably become the most prevalent (Hakanan & Roodt,

2010). The job demands-resources (JD-R) model (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007) underlies this

conceptualisation and proposes that job resources, psycho-social work characteristics such as

autonomy, social support, and job feedback, activate a motivational pathway leading to work

engagement and better well-being. Personal resources also activate this pathway; they are

individual characteristics such as self-efficacy, resilience, and optimism, which individuals

can draw on to overcome work challenges and stay engaged. Job demands include workload,

time pressure, and emotional demands and can activate a health impairment pathway leading

to poor well-being, engagement, and performance. Evidence for these relationships is

increasing (e.g. Halbesleben, 2010; Christian, Garza & Slaughter, 2011). Accumulating

evidence also suggests that high levels of job and personal resources buffer against the

negative effects of high job demands (e.g. Hakanan, Bakker & Demerouti, 2005; Bakker,

Hakanan, Demerouti & Xanthopoulou, 2007). In summary, the JD-R model suggests that job

and personal resources are positive antecedents of work engagement while job demands is a

negative antecedent. Over recent years the field has turned towards the design and

implementation of interventions to harness the positive power of work engagement and it is

to these which we now turn.


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Work engagement interventions

Knight and colleagues (2017a) identified four ‘types’ of work engagement interventions in

their meta-analysis: (1) personal resource building, which focus on increasing individual

strengths such as self-efficacy, resiliency, and optimism; (2) job resource building, which aim

to develop positive aspects of the work environment such as autonomy, social support,

feedback, and developmental opportunities; (3) leadership training, which develop managers’

leadership skills through education and practical exercises such as practising goal-setting and

problem-solving in groups; and (4) health promotion, which focus on increasing the health

and well-being of individuals and reducing stress, often by encouraging individuals to take

part in onsite mindfulness, stress management or exercise / relaxation programmes. Job

demands-resources (JD-R; Bakker & Demerouti, 2007; 2008) theory generally underlies

these interventions. This theory predicts that through increasing job and / or personal

resources, and decreasing job demands, work engagement can be improved and is associated

with other positive outcomes such as well-being and job performance (Bakker & Demerouti,

2007).

Overall, the meta-analysis revealed a positive effect on work engagement interventions,

however, the results of individual studies were mixed and a moderator effect of intervention

‘type’ was not observed (Knight et al., 2017a). One reason for this could be heterogeneity

within each category in terms of intervention content. For example, personal resource

interventions included individual strategies to develop one’s strengths, such as self-efficacy

and gratitude (Ouweneel, Le Blanc & Schaufeli, 2013), and group workshops involving

active learning, role playing and social modelling (Vuori, Toppinen-Tanner & Mutanen,

2012). A moderator effect was observed for ‘intervention style’, with group interventions


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particularly effective. Knight et al. (2017a) used the term ‘intervention style’ to refer to

whether interventions were carried out in groups, individually, online, or using a mixture of

group and individual methods (Knight et al., 2017a). This term could be confused with

‘intervention type’, therefore, we refer to ‘intervention delivery method’ instead of

‘intervention style’ throughout the rest of this paper. The term ‘intervention type’ may also be

confused with other terms, such as delivery method, therefore, from now on we refer to

‘specific intervention focus’ instead of ‘intervention type’. We believe that ‘specific

intervention focus’ better reflects the intended strategy of the intervention for improving

work engagement, for example, through health promotion, leadership training, or building job

or personal resources. The first aim of this paper is therefore to explore further the specific

intervention foci, delivery methods, and content of interventions.

We aim to meet the second aim of this paper by exploring whether an effect on engagement,

or one of its subcomponents, is observed by each study. Engagement as a construct

comprising vigour, dedication and absorption, and the associated Utrecht Work Engagement

Scale (UWES; Schaufeli et al., 2002), is commonly understood to be the most researched and

established conceptualisation (Bailey et al, 2015; Hakanan & Roodt, 2010). We therefore

expect most studies will have adopted this approach, as was found by Knight et al (2017a).

However, we acknowledge that a number of other definitions and scales exist (e.g. Job

Engagement Scale; Rich, Le Pine & Crawford, 2010; Shirom-Melamed Vigor Measure;

Shirom, 2011). We intend to include all possible engagement interventions by incorporating

results from interventions using these other scales as long as our other inclusion criteria are

met.

Mediators and moderators underlying work engagement interventions


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The third aim of this paper is to elaborate existing knowledge about how, why, and when

effective work engagement interventions work. We use current evidence and theory to briefly

review what is already known on this topic, first discussing potential mediators and then

potential moderators. Figure 1 summarises current evidence around the relationships between

interventions, mediators, moderators, and engagement. Mediators are variables which are

either fully or partially needed for a predictor variable to have an effect on an outcome

variable (Aguinis, Edwards & Bradley, 2017). For our purposes, mediators are therefore

intervening causal variables between interventions and engagement. We have already noted

that JD-R theory proposes that job and personal resources are motivational and drive

engagement (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007; 2008), and there is mounting evidence to this effect

(for a review, see Bailey et al., 2017). We therefore expect that increases in job and personal

resources will mediate between interventions and increases in work engagement.

In addition, we expect that interventions will enable individuals to meet work-related needs

for autonomy (choice and freedom), competence (meeting challenging goals) and relatedness

(a sense of belonging with a team, department or organisation), in accordance with self-

determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2001). JD-R model supposes that resources and demands

enable individuals to satisfy their work-related needs leading to engagement. Therefore, we

expect support for the satisfaction of work-related needs as mediators to emerge from our

review where included studies assess work-related needs. In particular, interventions which

increase the amount of control individuals perceive they have over their work and how they

carry it out are likely to satisfy the need for autonomy (Van den Broeck, Vansteenkiste, De

Witte, & Lens (2008). Interventions which are developmental, offer training, or improve

reward and recognition systems are likely to increase individuals’ sense of self-efficacy and

competence, while a focus on increasing colleague and supervisor support and social support


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generally is likely to meet the need for relatedness (Van den Broeck et al., 2008). The

satisfaction of these needs is motivational, promoting the meeting of work goals and

encouraging work engagement. In support, Knight and colleagues (2017b) found that

satisfaction of work-related needs mediated between their intervention and work engagement.

We also postulate that some aspects of well-being may mediate between interventions and

engagement. Well-being may be defined as ‘the overall quality of an employee’s experience

and functioning at work’ (Grant, Christianson & Price, 2007, p. 52). According to this

definition, well-being could include any number of indicators, such as positive affect,

optimism, burnout, depression, anxiety, as well as engagement. As our focus is on this latter

concept specifically, we refer to ‘well-being’ as encompassing all other indicators of the

quality of employees’ experience and functioning at work besides engagement. The JD-R

model also adopts this approach and does not specify a causal order between engagement and

other indicators of well-being, though a strong association is predicted (Bakker & Demerouti,

2007). The wider literature is not clear how engagement may relate to other indicators of

well-being (Rothmann, 2006; Schaufeli et al., 2008), or indeed, whether the term is

confounded with other well-being constructs such as positive affect (e.g. Macey & Schneider,

2008). Nevertheless, some isolated intervention studies suggest that certain aspects of well-

being may lead to engagement. For example, Imamura et al. (2015) found that a positive

change in depression mediated between an online cognitive-behaviour therapy (CBT)

intervention and work engagement and Meyers et al. (2007) found that positive affect

mediated between a strengths-based intervention and engagement. Broaden-and-build theory

(Fredrickson, 2001) may help explain the relationship between positive affect and work

engagement. This theory proposes that the positive emotions associated with engagement

allows individuals to fully invest themselves in their work roles and broaden their repertoire


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of potential actions which come to mind (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). This can lead to a

‘gain spiral’ of resources and increased performance (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). Some

indicators of well-being may therefore emerge as mediators in work engagement

interventions.

Moderators are variables which change the strength or nature of the effect of a predictor

variable on an outcome (Aguinis et al., 2017). In this review, we are interested in moderators

impacting the effect of interventions on engagement. We expect that employee participation

will emerge as a moderator, in accordance with other intervention research (e.g. Knight et al.,

2017; Kompier, Geurts, Grundemann, Vink & Smulders, 1998; Nielsen & Randall, 2012).

More recently, Knight et al. (2017) noted how a participatory action intervention was

effective for increasing engagement particularly. Participation may improve colleague social

support due to increased interaction with others through problem-solving and decision-

making (Nielsen & Randall, 2012). It may also improve satisfaction with work-related needs

for autonomy and competence whilst also increasing sense of belonging with work colleagues

(Knight et al., 2017).

We also expect that intervention level, that is, whether interventions are top-down or bottom-

up, will impact effectiveness. Top down interventions are initiated and driven by

organisations and senior managers and applied across whole teams, departments, or

organisations (Hornung, Russeau, Glaser, Angerer and Weigl, 2010). Such interventions may

include leadership training, increases in staffing, or improved communication and feedback

systems. In contrast, bottom-up interventions are driven by individuals themselves, and

therefore involve employees themselves initiating and making changes (Hornung et al.,

2010). This may take the form of job crafting, where employees change the boundaries,


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conditions and meaning of their own job tasks and job relationships (Wrzesnieski & Dutton,

2001). Examples include proactively taking on a challenging new work project, learning a

new skill, or brainstorming with a colleague to problem-solve. Importantly, bottom-up

changes have effects which are local to the individual and their work environment rather than

being organisation-wide. Debate still surrounds whether top-down or bottom-up interventions

are most effective (see Briner & Reynolds, 1999; Richardson & Rothstein, 2008; Semmer,

2006;), with some scholars concluding that interventions which combine both strategies (e.g.

idiosyncratic deals, or i-deals, which are employee-manager negotiated) are most likely to be

effective (e.g. Hornung, et al. 2010). We contribute to this debate and determine whether

intervention level is a moderator of work engagement interventions.

Intervention implementation is also likely to impact, or moderate, intervention success.

Interventions which report high fidelity (i.e. carried out according to plan), employee

compliance, and low attrition rates alongside high response rates, are likely to be most

effective. Several researchers note that erroneous conclusions can be drawn if null results are

not placed in the context of intervention implementation; that is, interventions may fail due to

poor implementation as opposed to an incorrectly specified programme theory (e.g. Nielsen

& Miraglia, 2017; Briner & Reynolds, 1999). Wider factors such as organisational and

national factors are likely to also moderate intervention effectiveness. If several changes are

being implemented in an organisation at the same time (e.g. a flexible working policy, job

redesign, company mergers), internal validity of a work engagement intervention will be

compromised, preventing the evaluation of cause and effect (e.g. Knight et al., 2017b).

Changes must also align with current organisational systems, such as feedback,

communication and reward systems, else interventions are likely to fail (e.g. Morgeson,

Johnson, Campion, Medsker & Mumford, 2006). Moreover, any intervention requires the


12

strong endorsement of senior managers to help drive the intervention and encourage

employee attendance and compliance (Nielsen et al., 2010). Knight and colleagues (2017b)

found that poor senior manager support may have hindered participation, impacting

subsequent intervention effects. Changes to the economic or political backdrop may also have

an effect, with job insecurity and high unemployment particularly likely to impede

intervention success. For example, one study reported redundancy and poor attendance at

training sessions which is likely to have impeded intervention success (Hengel, Joling,

Proper, Blatter & Bongers, 2012).

Please insert Figure 1 about here

Method

Search strategy

We adopted standard systematic review methodology (Shamseer et al., 2015; Snape, Meads,

Bagnall, Tregaski & Mansfield, 2016) and updated Knight and colleagues’ (2017a) search

using similar search terms, including ‘work engagement’, ‘intervention’, ‘group’,

‘individual’, ‘online’, and ‘web’ (Supplementary Material). Our initial search was conducted

in December 2016 and was updated in 2018 to include additional studies from 2017. We

searched the subject specific databases, Web of Science, Scopus, and Medline for published

studies only. These databases were also used by Knight et al. (2017). The considerable

increase in published intervention studies over the past few years suggested sufficient data

within quality-controlled, peer-reviewed research to answer our research questions and is in

keeping with previous reviews (e.g. Daniels, Gedikli, Watson, Semkina & Vaughn, 2017).

Authors were contacted for access / further information where necessary.


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Criteria for inclusion

We used standard PICO terminology (Population, Intervention, Comparators, Outcomes;

Liberati et al., 2009), to inform our inclusion criteria. We included interventions conducted

with working age employees, of any type (e.g. job resource building, health promotion) and

style (e.g. face-to-face, online, or group). Pre-test only designs or post-test designs lacking a

control or comparison group were excluded. Studies recording post-intervention results for

both an intervention and control or comparison group were included to capture as many

studies as possible whilst maintaining the quality of the review. Our outcomes were work,

employee or job engagement and / or any of its subcomponents, such as vigour, dedication or

absorption (for an example of our search strategy, see Supplementary Material).

We included studies that had utilised a measure of engagement validated in the academic

literature, to maintain the quality of the evidence. Psychometric validation ensures that

measurement scales capture the construct under study and demonstrate appropriate

convergent and divergent validity with associated constructs. Where psychometrics are

unknown, measures may not actually assess the intended construct and could lead to

erroneous conclusions. The initial search placed no constraints on the year conducted, setting

or location. Non-English studies were excluded due to the capacity of the review team.

Following the search, references were amalgamated using the referencing manager software,

EndNote Web. Duplicates were removed and titles and abstracts screened by the first author

for inclusion. Full texts of studies passing this screening process were retrieved and further

scrutinised for inclusion. We ensured that all previously identified studies by Knight and

colleagues’ meta-analysis (2017) were re-identified, as well as capturing new studies.

Extensive discussion and cross-checking of papers occurred with the other authors


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throughout the screening process to ensure consistency and agreement around included and

excluded papers1.

Study coding and analysis

Study characteristics were coded according to an in-depth coding guide which was adapted

and developed from Knight and colleagues (2017a). Information extracted included

demographics such as location and industry type, study design particulars such as presence of

randomisation, control groups, and number of measurement time points, intervention

duration, and intervention components such as workshops, coaching, or homework. We

extracted ‘specific intervention focus’ details followed the same four category typology of

work engagement interventions developed by Knight et al., (2017a) and described in the

introduction, namely, i) job resource building; ii) personal resource building; iii) leadership

training; and iv) health promotion. Following the coding process, we added a fifth category,

‘job and personal resources building’ interventions to capture interventions which focused

equally on developing job and personal resources. In practice, this category involved two

interventions grounded in job demands-resources theory that used job crafting principles to

increase both job and personal resources. Interventions that adopted job crafting to improve

job resources only were classified under the category. ‘job resources building’ intervention.

Intervention delivery method was captured using three categories: ‘group’ referring to studies

where participants all met together for a particular intervention, ‘individual’ studies involved

one-to-one sessions such as coaching, and activities carried out alone, including online; and

‘group and individual’ studies involved studies comprising both a substantial individual and

1 Following the review process an independent researcher with expertise in the field double-screened a

portion (38%) of the records obtained from the database search. Agreement was 100% following the

extraction of full papers, meaning that no new studies met our inclusion criteria and only studies already

included were found.


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group component, for example, an intervention where individuals take part in weekly

sessions as well as substantive homework. Following discussion, we collapsed the two

separate categories identified in Knight et al. (2017a), ‘individual’ and ‘online and

individual’, classifying them under one category (‘individual’), as we found that studies

within these categories had used a range of different methods focused on the individual,

including online information and exercises, e-coaching and face-to-face coaching. During the

coding process, we identified one study which did not clearly fit into any of our three

delivery method categories (Van Steenbergen, Van der Ven, Peeters & Taris, 2017). This

study described a top-down, management led, organisation-wide intervention involving

changes to working procedures and policies. We created a fourth category to accommodate

this intervention, called ‘systemic’ interventions.

We acknowledge the inherent overlap in our categories yet consider them more

parsimonious and interpretable than other configurations, and particularly offer a useful

comparison between interventions combining substantive group and individual methods of

delivery and those adopting either a group or individually focused method of delivery.

Importantly, no study was placed in more than one category at a time to facilitate ease of

interpretation. Intervention-level was assessed using Hornung and colleagues’ (2010)

definition of top-down and bottom-up interventions. Interventions which were judged to be

initiated and led by managers, with wide-scale impact on organisations or departments, were

therefore considered top-down. Interventions which involved encouraging individuals to

proactively make changes themselves were considered bottom-up. We also recorded the

engagement measure used, the engagement subcomponents measured (e.g. vigour,

dedication, absorption), other variables measured, and results and conclusions. Other

variables included job and personal resources, job crafting, and well-being and were intended

to inform our discussion of mediators and moderators.


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The Risk of Bias Tool was adopted to extract information from studies related to evidence for

bias that is likely to substantially impact the results or conclusions of a study (Higgins,

Altman & Sterne, 2011). Five criteria are considered: 1) selection bias, whether there are

systematic differences between intervention and control / comparison groups (e.g. determined

by the presence / absence of randomisation and allocation concealment); 2) performance bias,

whether systematic differences exist between participants in exposure to the intervention (e.g.

were participants aware of which intervention they received?); 3) detection bias, whether

systematic differences exist between groups in determining outcomes (e.g. knowledge of

which intervention was received may impact outcome responses); 4) attrition bias, systematic

differences between those who did and did not complete interventions; and 5) reporting bias,

systematic differences between reported and unreported findings (e.g. were all outcomes

reported, even if not statistically significant?). Studies are considered ‘high risk’ if there is

evidence of bias which is likely to substantially affect the results or conclusions drawn, such

as non-randomisation, very small sample sizes, or systematic differences between

intervention and control groups. Studies are considered ‘low risk’ if there is no indication of

bias which is likely to impact conclusions, and these studies are characterised by

randomisation, good sample sizes, and little attrition, for example. Studies rated as ‘unclear

risk’ lack the information necessary to make a judgement, for example, by omitting method

details such as how randomisation was carried out, failing to describe whether groups were

tested for systematic differences, and omitting response and attrition rates. A study rated as

high risk in at least one of the five areas is considered high risk overall. Due to the nature of

organisational interventions, where it is often impractical to randomise participants, blinding

may be impossible, and attrition can be high, all of our studies were rated as high risk overall.


17

We also captured other characteristics of study quality, such as whether interventions were

carried out according to plan (fidelity), and implementation factors such as adverse events

occurring during the intervention. Such events include mergers, redundancies, economic

downturn, degree of participant compliance with intervention components, and attrition and

response rates. These factors are crucial to understanding the intervention context and how

much confidence can be placed in conclusions drawn (Briner & Walshe, 2015; Nielsen, et al.,

2010). In accordance with current recommendations (e.g. Daniels et al., 2018; Snape et al.,

2016), we did not create overall ratings of quality for each of our individual studies. We

instead used the information collected from the Risk of Bias Tool and the fidelity and

implementation factors to inform the development and quality ratings of overall evidence

statements, described shortly.

An independent coder (a researcher working in a related field) double coded 33% of the

studies (k=13) to ensure consistency and rigour. According to Cohen’s kappa (Cohen, 1960),

all agreement rates were greater than .60 over and above that expected by chance, except one

(.44, intervention delivery method), indicating good agreement (Orwin, 1994). Many were

>.75 and approached 100%. Following discussion and consultation with a third expert,

another author, all initial disagreements were resolved and consensus reached.

Following data extraction, we created harvest plots, adapted from previous systematic

reviews of complex interventions (e.g. Daniels et al, 2017; Crowther, Avenell, MacLennan &

Mowatt, 2011; Ogilvie et al., 2011), to aid data synthesis,). These plots summarise the

evidence for the effectiveness of each type of intervention (Figures 2-4). Based on these

harvest plots and the extracted data, summary evidence statements were developed (Table 2)

according to the GRADE (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and


18

Evaluation) approach outlined by Snape and colleagues (2016). This approach is suitable for

evaluating evidence from quantitative studies. Each overall finding, or evidence statement,

was placed into one of four categories according to the weight of evidence underlying each

finding (Snape et al., 2016): 1) ’Strong evidence’ when there was good confidence in the

results, for example when data was obtained from randomised controlled studies; 2)

‘Promising evidence’ when future research could impact confidence in results, such as when

data was based on non-randomised studies; 3) ’Initial evidence’ when results were based on

observational or uncontrolled studies; and 4) ‘Inconclusive evidence’ when there was

minimal confidence in conclusions, for example due to data from observational studies which

reported severe implementation issues such as lack of attendance or attrition.

According to GRADE (Guyatt et al., 2011), five factors can cause the quality of evidence to

be downgraded: i) study limitations such as lack of group allocation concealment, lack of

blinding, low response rates, or high attrition rates; ii) inconsistent results across studies, for

example where some studies reporting positive effects, some negative effects, and others no

effect; iii) indirectness of evidence, for example, where the intervention sample differs from

the control or comparison group substantially, or where two interventions are compared to a

control but not to each other; iv) imprecision, when sample sizes are small and variance in the

estimate of effect is large; v) publication bias, which may be indicated by studies funded by

industry, or when most published studies seem to indicate positive effects, as this can suggest

reporting bias. In addition, three factors can increase the quality of evidence: i) when

evidence from weaker study designs such as observational studies report large and consistent

effects; ii) when there is evidence of a dose-response gradient, that is, when effects increase

as intervention exposure increases; iii) in situations when confounding would decrease the

size of the effect yet an effect is still observed. We assessed the evidence for each of our


19

statements using to these criteria and applied a quality grading to our evidence statements

accordingly (Table 2).

Results

This section is organised in three parts according to our review aims. A descriptive analysis

precedes these results and provides an overview of the study characteristics (see also Table

1).

Systematic search results

Our initial and supplementary systematic search revealed 2,065 hits overall, which was

reduced to 1038 once duplicates were removed. Titles and abstracts were screened for

inclusion and full-texts were obtained for further scrutiny where necessary. Following this

process, 40 records were included in the systematic review (Figure 2). All 13 published

studies included in Knight and colleagues’ (2017a) review were also captured by our search

and included. Studies were conducted across 19 different countries, including The

Netherlands (k=15), the rest of Europe (k=14), the USA (k=4), Japan (k=4), and Australia

(k=2). The organisations involved varied considerably and included health and welfare

(k=15), education (k=7), finance (k=3), and manufacturing (k=2).

Please insert Figure 2 about here

Please insert Table 1 about here

Specific intervention focus, delivery method, and content

Five of the studies were personal resource building interventions, twelve were job resource

building, three involved leadership training, and 18 involved health promotion. Two

interventions explicitly focused on developing both personal and job resources (Van


20

Wingerden, Bakker & Derks, 2016; 2017a), forming the fifth group. This extends and

develops the taxonomy previously identified (Knight et al., 2017a). Thirteen studies were

conducted in groups, eight individually, seventeen involved both a substantial group and

individual element, and one was a top-down ‘systemic’ job redesign.

The duration of the interventions varied between overnight implementation (Van Steenbergen

et al., 2017), half a day (Meyers & Van Woerkom, 2017) and 12 months (Schelvis et al.,

2017; White, Butterworth & Wells, 2017), with seven conducted over 0-4 weeks, 15 over 5-8

weeks, nine over 2-6 months, and four over 6-12 months. The duration of one study was

unclear (Coo & Salanova, 2017). Study sample size varied enormously, between 16 (Ng,

2013) and 1236 (Imamura et al., 2017) participants.

The effectiveness of work engagement interventions

Twenty studies (50%) had a statistically significant positive effect on work engagement or

one of its sub-components, two (5%) had a statistically significant negative effect and 18

(45%) had no effect (Figures 2-4). More specifically, seventeen studies found positive,

significant effects on overall work engagement (46% of those measuring overall work

engagement, k=37), one (3%) found a significant negative effect on overall engagement (Ng,

2013), and 19 (51%) found no effect. Amongst subcomponents, seven studies reported

positive significant effects on vigour (33% of those measuring vigour; k=18), one (5%)

reported a negative effect (Ng, 2013), and ten (56%) reported no effect. Four studies reported

positive significant effects on dedication (25% of those measuring dedication, k=16), and

eleven (69%) reported no effect. Three studies reported positive significant effects on

absorption (20% of those measuring absorption, k=15), one (7%) reported a negative effect

(Schelvis et al., 2017), and ten (67%) reported no effect. Some studies conducted subgroup


21

analyses, which we discuss in the results section on moderators. The inconsistent but

promising results led to the development of our first evidence statement:

Evidence statement 1: There is initial evidence that work engagement interventions

are effective, with the strongest evidence for overall work engagement

Mediators of work engagement interventions

Two studies reported a positive significant effect on both job resources, such as autonomy

and social support, and engagement or one of its subcomponents, six reported the same for

both personal resources, such as self-efficacy and resilience, and engagement, and one for

both job demands, such as workload and emotional demands, and engagement. This is

consistent with Watson, Tregaskis, Gedliki, Vaughn & Semkina’s, (2018) recent review

which indicated strong evidence for the effectiveness of personal resource building

interventions on well-being. Four of the five job crafting interventions observed a significant

positive effect on job crafting as well as engagement, with Van Wingerden and colleagues

(2017a) observing partial mediation between job crafting, work engagement and in-role

performance. These job crafting interventions were predicated on JD-R theory and

specifically aimed to increase resources and reduce hindrance demands. Another study did

not observe statistical mediation between the job crafting intervention, job or personal

resources, and work engagement, though it did between the intervention, increasing structural

resources, and performance (Van Wingerden, Bakker and Derks, 2017b). Further, Van

Wingerden and colleagues (2017a) found that work engagement mediated between improved

psychological capital, comprising the personal resources self -efficacy, resilience, optimism

and hope, and in-role performance. In addition, two studies observed that work-related needs

mediated between interventions and work engagement, supporting SDT as the underlying


22

theory of the JD-R model (Van Wingerden, Bakker and Derks, 2017c; Knight et al., 2017b).

These results led to the development of evidence statement 2:

Evidence statement 2: There is initial evidence that positive changes in job resources

(especially autonomy & social support), job demands (especially workload), personal

resources (especially self-efficacy & resilience), and work-related needs, mediate

between work engagement interventions and work engagement (including

subcomponents), with the strongest evidence for job crafting interventions

There was considerable support for the association between well-being and work engagement

proposed by JD-R theory (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). Overall, 17 studies reported positive,

significant effects on well-being variables, with ten also reporting a positive, significant

effect on engagement. The JD-R model (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007) does not state a causal

relationship between well-being and engagement, however, some studies observed such a

relationship statistically. Imamura et al. (2015) found that positive change in depression

partially mediated between a psychoeducational online intervention and work engagement at

both three and six months post-intervention and Meyers and Van Woerkom (2017) found that

positive affect mediated between personal resource building and work engagement as well as

life satisfaction and reduced burnout. One study also observed that improved daily vigour

mediated between a daily respite intervention and post-intervention vigour (Steidle,

Gonzalez-Morales, Hoppe, Michel, & O’Shea, 2017). Daily vigour in this study referred to

the work engagement sub-component and was viewed as an element of well-being due to its

association with positive energy and the absence of fatigue. In addition, five of the nine

mindfulness interventions observed a significant positive effect on engagement, with two also

measuring and demonstrating a positive impact on mindfulness. The effectiveness of

mindfulness is consistent with a recent review of mindfulness interventions which found

positive effects on well-being indicators (Donaldson-Feilder, Lewis & Yarker, 2018). In sum,


23

three studies observed statistical mediation relationships between the intervention, well-

being, and work engagement, with seven further studies observing positive, significant effects

of on both well-being and engagement. Based on our results, we developed the following

evidence statement:

Evidence statement 3: There is initial evidence that improved well-being mediates

between interventions and work engagement, with the strongest evidence for

mindfulness interventions.

Moderators of work engagement interventions

Our findings revealed seven potential moderators of work engagement interventions: 1)

specific intervention focus; 2) intervention delivery method; 3) employee participation

alongside strong manager support; 4) level of the intervention (bottom-up vs top-down); 5)

need for the intervention (i.e. whether or not the initial level of work engagement was low);

6) success of intervention implementation; and 7) organisational (e.g. restructuring,

concurrent projects, job changes) and national (e.g. economic) factors. These are discussed in

turn.

Amongst the effective interventions, the largest proportion, (45%) and highest quality (see

Figure 5), were health promotion studies. Four of these were mindfulness interventions. Both

job and personal resource building interventions were also successful, and comprised two of

the four effective job crafting interventions. In comparison, eight of the studies showing no

effect on work engagement were health promotion (44% of studies with no effect, Figure 5),

and five of these were mindfulness-based. Only one non-effective study (in terms of work

engagement) involved job crafting. Taken together, the results are inconsistent but tentatively


24

suggest initial evidence for the effectiveness of health promotion interventions, and

mindfulness in particular, as well as job crafting.

Evidence statement 4: There is initial evidence to suggest that the specific

intervention focus moderates the effectiveness of work engagement interventions, with

the strongest evidence for job crafting and health promotion interventions, including

Mindfulness.

Two-thirds of studies (67%) with positive, significant effects incorporated both a substantial

group and individual component. This compares to 38% of interventions containing just a

group or just an individual component. There did not appear to be a clear pattern indicating

whether one type of intervention was more effective than another type. This evidence was

supported by three randomised studies and seven non-randomised but controlled studies,

suggesting stronger designs and greater confidence in the results.

Evidence statement 5: There is promising evidence that intervention delivery method

moderates the effectiveness of work engagement interventions, with the strongest

evidence for interventions including both a substantial group and individual

component.

85% (k=17) of the 20 studies with positive, significant effects on work engagement, that is,

all the group and joint group and individual interventions, were characterised by employee

participation. This compared to 72% (k=13) of studies showing no effect, and 100% of

studies indicating significant, negative effects (k=2), indicating inconsistency in the results.

Fourteen of the 17 effective studies involved group training with both education and practice

elements, such as leadership, job crafting, or mindfulness training. Other forms of

participation included a reflection and support group (Bishop, 2013), employees themselves

addressing work issues and designing interventions through collaborative discussion and

problem-solving (e.g. White et al., 2017), and participation in an exercise programme (e.g.


25

Strijk, Proper, Van Mechelen & Van der Beek, 2013). The need for strong manager support

alongside participation was evident in three studies which cited poor manager support that

impeded intervention success (Coffeng et al., 2014; Knight et al., 2017b; Imamura et al.,

2015).

Evidence statement 6: There is initial evidence that employee participation alongside

strong manager support positively moderates the effectiveness of work engagement

interventions

70% of the successful interventions were bottom-up (k=14), compared to 50% (k=9) of

interventions with no effect on engagement suggesting that the level of the intervention

moderates intervention effectiveness. Job crafting and mindfulness interventions formed the

largest proportion of bottom-up interventions with positive effects.

Evidence statement 7: There is promising evidence that bottom-up interventions are

more effective than top-down interventions for increasing work engagement

Subgroup analyses also yielded some insights. Both Ouweneel et al. (2013) and Imamura et

al. (2017) reported a significant effect for those initially low in engagement, suggesting the

benefit of targeting interventions towards this group. The success of intervention

implementation also appeared important. Six studies provided detailed analyses on the topic,

with three publishing separate ‘process evaluations’ (Coffeng et al., 2013; Strijk, Proper, Van

der Beek and Van Mechelen, 2011; Van Berkel, Boot, Proper, Bongers & Van der Beek,

2013). These process evaluations discussed how many people the intervention impacted or

reached, compliance, indicated via attendance and degree of use of intervention materials,

fidelity, or whether the intervention was delivered according to protocol, participant

satisfaction with the intervention, and contextual issues such as wider physical, social and

political barriers and facilitators. All three studies reported variable success: Coffeng et al

(2013) found better implementation at the team leader than employee level and found that a


26

combined physical and social intervention was better received; Strijk et al. (2011) reported

good implementation and participant satisfaction; and Van Berkel et al. (2013) found good

implementation for a mindfulness component but not for e-coaching or homework aspects.

They also noted a significant increase in vigour for those who were highly compliant with a

yoga group. These results suggest the importance of successful implementation for

intervention effectiveness. Amongst these three studies, Strijk and colleagues (2014) also

found a positive effect on engagement.

Other studies briefly discussed some implementation aspects. Considering all studies

together, attrition varied between 0% (Cifre, Salanova, & Rodriguez-Sanchez, 2011; Verweij

et al., 2013; Van Wingerden et al., 2016) and 83% (Ouweneel et al., 2013). Reasons for

attrition were cited by 15 studies and most commonly included lack of time / high workload,

sickness absence, low motivation, low management support, holiday absence, and

redundancy. In terms of fidelity, issues concerned fewer workshops than planned being

conducted (Hengel et al., 2012; Knight, 2017b), failure to strongly indicate the rationale for

interventions to participants (Hengel et al., 2012), and differing degrees of adherence to

protocols (e.g. Van Berkel et al., 2014). None of the studies reporting these fidelity issues

described positive engagement effects. In terms of compliance, nine studies detailing health

promotion interventions reported attendance / compliance which was above 75% on at least

one component, four of which also reported a positive effect on engagement (Klatt,

Steinberg, & Duchemin, 2015; Steinberg, Klatt & Duchemin, 2017; Strijk et al., 2013; and

Van Gordon et al., 2017). Two studies reported poor attendance / compliance, both of which

experienced no effect on engagement (Hengel et al., 2012; Knight, 2017b). Five studies

reported ‘good’ satisfaction with interventions – three of which reported positive effects on

engagement - and one reported variable rates depending on the intervention component, and


27

did not report a positive engagement effect (Van Berkel et al., 2014). Based on these

observations, we developed the following two evidence statements:

Evidence statement 8: There is inconclusive evidence that interventions targeted at

employees low in engagement will be most effective

Evidence statement 9: There is promising evidence that intervention implementation,

particularly in terms of fidelity, compliance, and participant satisfaction, moderates

the effectiveness of interventions on work engagement

Four studies reported organisational factors which may have impacted study implementation

(Hengel et al., 2012; Knight, 2017b; Van Berkel et al., 2014; White et al,, 2017), one of

which also reported a positive effect on engagement (White et al., 2017). Factors included

organisational restructuring (Van Berkel et al., 2014), concurrent projects which affected the

ability to draw causal conclusions, ward closure and a hospital being assigned ‘special

measure’ status2 (Knight, 2017b), and participants changing location / teams (Van Berkel et

al, 2014). In terms of national factors, an economic downturn was cited by two studies,

neither of which had positive effects on engagement (Hengel et al., 2010; White et al., 2017).

Our final evidence statement is as follows:

Evidence statement 10: There is initial evidence that national (e.g. economic) and

organisational (e.g. restructuring, concurrent projects, job role changes) factors

moderate the effectiveness of interventions on engagement

Please insert Table 2 about here

Please insert Figures 3-5 about here

Discussion

2 ‘Special measures’ refers to when there are concerns surrounding hospital patient quality of care, and are designed to offer hospitals extra support to enable standards of care to be improved.


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In accordance with Knight and colleagues (2017a) findings, our results revealed that work

engagement interventions can be effective. Going beyond Knight and colleagues’ (2017a)

research, we explicitly addressed whether mediators of engagement interventions could be

identified and suggest three: 1) job resources; 2) personal resources; and 3) well-being. We

also suggest seven key moderators, expanding on those tested in Knight and colleagues’

(2017a) meta-analysis: 1) specific intervention focus; 2) intervention delivery method 3)

employee participation alongside strong manager support; 4) intervention level; 5) need for

the intervention; 6) success of intervention implementation; and 7) organisational and

national factors. Our results deviate from the meta-analysis in that we conclude health

promotion interventions – and mindfulness in particular - and job crafting interventions to be

most effective (no moderator effect for the specific intervention focus, or ‘type’, was

observed in the previous meta-analysis).

Our interventions were heterogeneous and complex. In acknowledgment of this, we use the

specific intervention focus as a framework for integrating our discussion to consider in depth

how the specific intervention foci, delivery methods and content of interventions (research

aim 1) impacts their effectiveness (research aim 2) through different mediators and

moderators (research question 3). We end our discussion with an exploration of potential

avenues for future research and practice.

Mediators of work engagement interventions

Job resources are motivational as they allow individuals to effectively meet work goals.

Environments rich in resources such as autonomy, social support, job feedback, and

opportunities for development are intrinsically motivational, enabling individuals to thrive

and satisfy work-related needs for a sense of choice, competence, and belonging (Bakker &


29

Demerouti, 2007). Resource rich environments are also extrinsically motivating as they foster

willingness to invest effort at work. In both cases, work engagement is achieved as

individuals have the resources needed to practically carry out their jobs, the negative effects

of job demands are mitigated, and personal growth and fulfilment is stimulated (Bakker &

Demerouti, 2007). Our results revealed that building job resources through job crafting was

particularly effective. As a bottom-up strategy, job crafting allows individuals themselves to

change the amount of resources in the environment which are particularly pertinent to their

work role and work goals. Individual ownership of the intervention in this way is highly

motivational as individuals understand that the time and effort they invest into changing

particular resources will benefit them directly. This may not be so apparent in top-down

interventions where senior managers may not always convey the purpose and benefit of

interventions adequately. Evidence for the importance of senior management support and

leadership is growing in the literature (Nielsen et al., 2010; Stouten, Rousseau & Cremer,

2018).

Interventions which build personal resources foster engagement as individual self-evaluations

become more positive. These positive self-evaluations have been theoretically linked to

resiliency, with resilient individuals believing they are able to meet work demands and

achieve their goals in spite of adversity (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). They have a greater

sense of self-efficacy and optimism allowing them to persevere and continue to invest

themselves in work in order to achieve their goals. As such, these interventions build on a

rich heritage including Bandura’s social cognitive theory (SCT; Bandura, 1997), positive

psychology (Luthans, 2002; Seligman, Steen, Park & Peterson, 2005) and broaden-and-build

theory (Fredrickson, 2001). Thus, these interventions focused on increasing self-efficacy,

resilience, and positive emotions; one study focused on increasing individuals’ awareness of


30

their strengths and using them in the work context to elicit positive emotions and well-being,

and thereby work engagement (e.g. Meyers & Ver Woerkom, 2017); a second focused on

developing happiness through acts of kindness and revisiting positive work memories, as well

as goal setting (Ouweneel et al., 2013); and a final intervention in a nursing context focused

on appreciating one another through sharing nursing stories (Bishop, 2013).

We noted that two studies, both effective, used job crafting to increase both job and personal

resources, and formed a fifth category (Van Wingerden et al., 2016; Van Wingerden et al.,

2017a). Job crafting is receiving increasing interest in the literature, with a recent meta-

analysis involving 122 independent samples finding that job crafting behaviours were

strongly related to work engagement, as well as other variables such as proactive personality

and promotion regulatory focus (Rudolph, Katz, Lavigne & Zacher, 2017). We predict that

work engagement interventions focusing on increasing both personal and job resources from

a job crafting perspective are likely to increase. It may be that this two-pronged approach to

increasing work engagement is more effective than singularly increasing either personal or

job resources. In support, while Van Wingerden et al. (2017a) found that both a job crafting

intervention to increase personal resources and a combined job crafting intervention to

increase both job and personal resources were effective for increasing work engagement, only

the combined intervention was effective for increasing performance. Moreover, they found

that work engagement partially mediated the relationship between personal resources and in-

role performance.

Interventions which positively impact well-being may also improve work engagement.

Health promotion interventions tended to be of the highest quality and were found to be

particularly effective. For example, five of nine mindfulness-based studies adopted a


31

standardised approach and were conducted by a trained professional (e.g. Steinberg et al.,

2017; Van Gordon et al., 2017). Mindfulness may be defined in terms of present-centered

attention and awareness (Good et al., 2015) and the evidence base for their effectiveness is

perhaps stronger than for some of the other, less established, strategies that work engagement

interventions adopted (e.g. leadership training, job resource building). For example,

Mindfulness has already proved successful for increasing well-being, by reducing symptoms

such as stress, anxiety, and depression (for a good meta-analysis see Khoury et al., 2013).

Individuals reporting higher well-being also report higher work engagement (e.g.

Halbesleben, 2010), in accordance with the JD-R model (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007; 2008),

hence it is theoretically plausible that mindfulness should be effective for increasing work

engagement. Leroy et al. (2013) tested causal relationships and demonstrated that authentic

functioning mediated the relationship between mindfulness and engagement,, suggesting that

by improving self-awareness and one’s ability to self-regulate (i.e. authentic functioning),

individuals can make a conscious decision to invest their ‘true selves’ in work, therefore

increasing engagement.

A recent review on mindfulness (Good et al., 2015) indicated that mindfulness may foster

workplace well-being by increasing the personal resource, resilience. Through mindfulness,

individuals may cognitively reinterpret work situations and thus experience negative events

in the workplace differently. Therefore, aspects in the work environment previously

appraised as stressors may be reappraised as challenges, motivating individuals and enabling

them to increase engagement in work tasks. Future, longitudinal research is needed to

confirm these findings.


32

Two of the nine effective health promotion studies utilised cognitive-behavioural therapy

(CBT) strategies to improve individuals’ abilities to manage stress (Imamura et al., 2015;

Imamura et al., 2016). CBT has previously been found effective in intervention research. For

example, Khoury et al (2013) found that both Mindfulness and CBT were equally effective

for relieving symptoms of depression and anxiety. The effectiveness of CBT in our studies

suggests that such strategies may be effective for improving work engagement also. In

particular, Imamura et al (2015) found that an improvement in depression scores partially

mediated the relationship between the online CBT intervention and work engagement. This

could work through improved mental health freeing cognitive and emotional resources to be

focused on the job, allowing individuals to experience increased engagement. The authors

speculate that more broadly, self-efficacy and positive perception may be improved by the

intervention and contribute to work engagement. This may be explained by the intervention’s

focus on improving problem-solving skills, and cognitive restructuring and relaxation.

Imamura et al. (2016) found that a CBT intervention was particularly effective for those low

in baseline work engagement, however, this study did not report scores for personal resources

or mental health. A logical next step would be to test whether an improvement in personal

resources and / or mental health mediates between the intervention and work engagement.

Moderators of work engagement interventions

Interventions which contained both a substantial group and individual component were more

often successful than interventions which included only a group, or only an individual,

component. This is consistent with research suggesting the benefit of multi-modal

interventions in related fields such as work-related stress (e,g, Egan, Bambra, Thomas,

Petticrew, Whitehead & Thomson, 2007; Van der Klink, Blonk, Schene and Van Dijk, 2001).

Many of our multi-style interventions involved learning mindfulness, relaxation, or job


33

crafting techniques in groups which were then practised or carried out individually,

potentially allowing participants to consolidate their learning. A recent review suggests that

learning is central to well-being, and noted that online learning interventions were less

effective than more extensive learning interventions (Watson et al., 2018). This supports our

findings and could reflect the high degree of commitment and individual motivation needed

to sustain participation in self-conducted interventions (Warson et al., 2018). It is possible

that group interventions are more motivating due to their participative nature, which is

discussed next. Future studies could systematically compare the effectiveness of group,

individual and multi-style interventions from a learning perspective to confirm our findings

and unpack mediators and moderators.

Employee participation is a particular feature of group designs, and was a frequent

component of successful interventions, which is consistent with our expectations and

previous research (e.g. Knight et al., 2017a; Nielsen & Miraglia, 2017; Nielsen et al., 2010).

Participative designs allow individuals to develop relationships with colleagues and

contribute to decision-making. Positive colleague relationships can help build social support

at work and a sense of belonging, providing the resources needed to complete work tasks or

manage demands (Nielsen et al., 2010), as well as meeting the work-related need for

relatedness (Van den Broeck et al., 2008). In an intervention context, Knight et al. (2017b)

found that belonging mediated between social support and work engagement, and Van

Wingerden and colleagues (2017c) observed that work-related needs mediated between a job

crafting intervention, which included building social resources, and work engagement. In a

group retreat for nurses which encouraged the sharing of stories and experiences, increasing

social support as well as positive colleague feedback was theorised to underlie the

intervention (Bishop, 2013).


34

Participation may also take other guises, such as in training programmes, which were popular

in our included studies. The goal-setting, problem-solving and feedback processes involved

in many kinds of training, such as job crafting or leadership training, may be the important

ingredients driving the success of such interventions. For example, Holman and Axtell (2016)

reported that positive changes in perceptions of job control and feedback mediated between a

participatory intervention with call centre staff and well-being and performance. Involving

employees in developing interventions was theorised to promote their direct impact on work

issues of relevance to them. This is particularly motivational as employees can change

working conditions to enable their work-related needs to be met, in keeping with self-

determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2001). As an element of well-being, work engagement

might also be improved by such an intervention, supported by the positive effects observed

using goal-setting in job crafting interventions (e.g. Van Wingerden et al., 2016; 2017a;

2017b). Job crafting training may work in a similar way, albeit the focus is on meeting

individual needs as opposed to collective brainstorming and meeting group, team, or

department needs.

In terms of intervention level, our finding that bottom-up interventions are more successful

than top-down interventions supports previous research indicating that top-down

interventions may have few or mixed effects. Briner & Reynolds (1999) suggest that top-

down interventions may have unintended, negative side-effects due to impacting individuals

and organizations in ways that were not planned or considered. For example, Wall, Kemp,

Jackson and Clegg (1986) described an intervention to create autonomous work groups in a

manufacturing organisation. They found that while some factors such as job satisfaction

increased, other factors, such as motivation and organisational commitment did not, and yet


35

others were negatively affected, such as turnover and absenteeism. Semmer (2006) also

concluded that top-down interventions have inconsistent effects and suggested the utility of

combining top-down and bottom-up approaches. Amongst the effective bottom-up strategies,

job crafting was particularly common. This may indicate the importance of active employee

participation in structured training, goal-setting, and practice (all of which typically occur in

job crafting interventions) alongside a bottom-up approach. In terms of job crafting, the

ability of the individual to self-set goals is likely to be especially motivational, as the benefit

of the intervention is clearly apparent. This is in accordance with goal-setting theory (Locke

& Latham, 1990). Utilising goal-setting as a means of proactively taking control of one’s

work environment through job crafting is likely to encourage a sense of self-efficacy and

competence alongside actual changes to job resources. Outcomes may include an improved

fit between an individual’s needs and interests and the actual job, more enjoyable work, and

improved well-being, all of which can stimulate work engagement (Tims & Bakker, 2010).

Sub-group analyses revealed the importance of targeting those in need of interventions,

consistent with previous research (e.g. Briner & Walshe, 2015) and suggesting a potentially

cost-efficient, effective strategy for directing organisational resources to increase

engagement. In terms of implementation, high compliance with an intervention programme

was a predictor of success (e.g. Van Berkel et al., 2014). It is possible that other studies may

have observed more effects if they had also considered the degree of effective intervention

implementation through sub-group analyses. Issues highlighted by the six studies which

considered implementation factors included: poor manager support for interventions (e.g.

Strijk et al., 2013); potential cross-over effects between intervention and control groups

(Imamura et al., 2015, Vuori, Topinen-Tanner & Mutanen 2012); organisational restructuring

(Van Berkel et al., 2014); and concurrent projects preventing causal conclusions (e.g. Knight


36

et al., 2017b). In terms of national factors, economic downturn and job insecurity may have

impacted motivation to participate in some interventions (Hengel et al., 2012; White et al.,

2017). Taken together, these findings suggest that where intervention implementation is poor,

or organisational and national factors interfere with internal validity, causal conclusions

cannot be ascertained. At worst, erroneous conclusions can be drawn such as ascribing failure

of an intervention to incorrect program theory as opposed to poor intervention

implementation. We argue that intervention evaluations should discuss intervention

implementation alongside statistical conclusions as a matter of course.

It is important to note that 18 studies (45%) showed no effect on engagement (Figure 4).

These were characterised by a larger proportion of top-down interventions than those that

were effective, as well as a larger proportion of randomised designs, with several (k=4)

randomised at unit or department levels. Several of these studies noted the severe

implementation issues discussed above (e.g. Hengel et al., 2012; Knight et al., 2017). Top-

down interventions may be more prone to implementation issues due to organisational

variables which are beyond the control of individuals.

Finally, our results revealed that all studies except one measured work engagement using the

UWES. This echoes previous observations (Bailey et al., 2015; Knight et al., 2017a) and

reflects the dominance of Schaufeli and colleagues’ (2002) conceptualisation of work

engagement. Caution should be applied here, however, as this suggests academic consensus

over the meaning and measurement of engagement when in fact this does not yet exist (see

Macey & Schneider, 2008; Newman & Harrison, 2008). Other measures exist, grounded in

different definitions and theories (for an overview, see Bailey et al., 2015).


37

Strengths and limitations

To our knowledge, this is the first narrative, systematic review of work engagement

interventions, and the first with a particular focus on underlying mediators and moderators.

Strengths include our substantive focus on mediators and moderators, and our rigorous

approach. Our narrative approach enabled us to tease apart some of the mediators and

moderators which may underlie effective interventions and highlighted several directions for

future research, outlined below. In so doing, we go beyond the boundaries of other reviews

and significantly contribute towards work engagement intervention theory.

We acknowledge that the dominance of the UWES as a measure of work engagement in our

review may be viewed as both a strength and a limitation; on the one hand, results obtained

using the same scale are standardised thus enabling easier and more meaningful comparison,

whereas on the other there is the danger of inferring that the number of studies adopting the

UWES indicates its superiority in terms of reliability and validity. Alongside the dominance

of the UWES is the dominance of the JD-R model as the underlying framework yet evidence

for this model is also mixed (for a discussion see Schaufeli & Taris, 2014).

We acknowledge that the search terms adopted may have limited the results, and thus some

studies may not have been captured. We hope we mitigated this limitation by developing our

final terms following considerable experimentation and consultation with experts and

previous reviews. In addition, we concentrated on peer-reviewed, published literature due to

the growing body of relevant studies which was sufficient to explore our research questions,

and the greater quality and rigour of such literature. Following Bailey and colleagues’ (2015),

we excluded studies which used very broad definitions and measures of engagement that

were not underpinned by peer-reviewed research and thus were lacking evidence of validity


38

and robustness (e.g. the Gallup Q12; Harter, Schmidt & Hayes, 2002). Although this

prevented some studies from being included, we believe this was necessary to maintain the

quality and usefulness of our review. Due to our focus on published studies, there may be the

possibility of publication bias, however, research suggests that such a bias is unlikely and

does not pose a serious threat to validity (Dalton, Aguinis, Dalton, Bosco & Pierce, 2012). It

is also possible that misclassification of studies occurred, particularly in terms of type, with

some interventions potentially fitting into more than one category. Double-coding, with all

discrepancies discussed until consensus was reached, mitigated this possibility.

Directions for future research

Our focus on mediators and moderators underlying work engagement interventions revealed

several directions for future research. Crucially, few of our studies statistically assessed

mediation relationships yet this is key to understanding how and why interventions work.

Moreover, a limited number of job and personal resources, job demands and other potential

mediators were actually measured by our studies, hence we know little about which other

resources (i.e. besides autonomy, social support, self-efficacy & resilience), demands

(besides workload) and wider factors (besides work-related needs & well-being) might drive

intervention effectiveness. Other mediators could include attention in mindfulness

interventions and cognitive reappraisal in CBT interventions.

Assessing the balance between job resources and job demands is also important, given that

JD-R theory espouses that it is when job demands are high and job resources are low that

poor outcomes are particularly salient (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). This interaction effect

has been elusive (Wall, Jackson, Mullarkey & Parker, 1996), yet an intervention design,

which is a stronger test of theory than other research designs (e.g. cross-sectional, non-


39

intervention research) due to the ability to manipulate changes and assess causality, may help

unpack these relationships and explain why some interventions did not observe expected

effects. In addition, our observation that well-being drives engagement is not specifically

predicted by the JD-R model. Multi-wave longitudinal studies which investigate this

relationship in more detail are needed. These could explore the existence of reciprocal

relationships between well-being and engagement, and positive gain spirals, where improved

well-being leads to increased engagement which increases well-being further, and so on.

Some evidence for reciprocal relationships between resources and engagement exists

(Xanthopoulou, Bakker, Demerouti & Schaufeli, 2009), yet little is known about how well-

being might fit into these relationships.

We continue to know little about the effect of leaders on employees’ work engagement. Our

leadership training interventions were few in number and ineffective for increasing work

engagement. This could reflect the distal measurement of engagement, with managers

undergoing training and work engagement being assessed in their employees. Multilevel

studies which capture leaders’ perceptions as well as that of their followers would be more

informative and help to tease out the extent to which leaders are able to influence followers.

Research has also suggested that transformational leadership influences employee job and

personal resources (e.g. Breevart, Bakker, Hetland, Demerouti, Olsen & Espevik, 2014;

Tims, Bakker & Xanthopoulou, 2011), yet it is not yet known how this might impact

employees’ engagement.

Further, investigating the transfer of learning to the job might offer a potential avenue for

unpacking how leaders might influence their followers following leadership training.

Massenberg, Schulte and Kauffeld (2017) found that pre-training motivation to learn and


40

self-efficacy beliefs were particularly important for transferring training to the workplace. A

recent review of employee soft skills training, which are intra- and inter-personal skills such

as managing oneself and one’s interactions with others, found that autonomy, colleague and

supervisor support, workload, and the organisational learning climate were particularly

influential in enabling the transfer of learning to the job (Botke, Jansen, Khapova & Tims,

2018). More research is needed to unpack whether and how these factors might also be

important for the success of leadership training, which may involve the development of soft

skills to improve leader-subordinate interactions, to improve followers’ engagement.

Moderators of work engagement interventions are currently under-explored. We identified

seven but other moderators are likely, for example, personality. A recent meta-analysis found

that positive affectivity, proactive personality, conscientiousness and extraversion were the

strongest personality predictors of engagement (Young, Glerum, Wang & Joseph, 2018).

Young et al. (2018) argue that these personality traits enable individuals to manage their

energy more effectively, meaning they are more able to invest energy in work and so

experience increased engagement. Proactive personality may be another moderator of

engagement interventions, with proactive individuals tending to actively change their

circumstances and environment to meet goals (Bateman & Crant, 1993). Individuals with

proactive personalities might therefore respond well to engagement interventions as they are

motivated to improve their current circumstances (Crant, 2000). Further, some research

shows that it is possible to facilitate, or train, proactivity through other kinds of training and

development programmes such as problem-focused interventions, where aspects of the

current work environment are changed, or vision-focused interventions, where individuals

work towards future work goals (e.g. Strauss and Parker, 2018). Further research is needed to

understand which personality types are best suited to which interventions. It may then be


41

possible to target certain interventions towards people with certain personality traits for

optimum success.

Our results also raised context as a potential moderator. For example, a health promotion

intervention might be more appropriate when individuals’ well-being is poor, whereas a job

resource building intervention may be more effective if job resources are particularly low.

Further, a bottom-up approach such as job crafting may be more successful in work

environments characterised by instability and change, such as mergers, reorganisations,

multiple concurrent projects, and complex or unclear feedback and communication systems.

This is because it can be difficult to successfully implement organisation wide interventions

in times of change due to necessary resource and support systems already being

overstretched.

Furthermore, if necessary policies, practices and procedures needed to support interventions

are not in place or aligned with the intervention, the intervention may be condemmed to

failure (Saks, 2017). Moreover, applying blanket changes across whole organisations may not

meet individual needs and thus such approaches risk benefitting only some employees

(Hornung et al., 2010) and being cost-inefficient. In such situations, bottom-up interventions

like job crafting may be more appropriate. These are only likely to be successful, however, if

workers have at least some ability to take control and modify their own jobs (Hornung et al.,

2010). On the other hand, some researchers argue that organization-wide changes are needed

in order to positively impact the many drivers of engagement and create a culture of

engagement (Saks, 2017). It may be that a combination of bottom-up and top-down

interventions is more effective. More work is clearly needed to understand exactly which

interventions are effective for whom in which circumstances.


42

We also know very little about the multilevel effects of interventions. Do top-down

interventions impact team as well as individual work engagement? Likewise, might bottom-

up interventions affect team, unit or department engagement? The most effective

interventions in our review appeared to be bottom-up, however, this may have been due to

ease of implementation. None of our studies measured effects at levels other than the

individual, yet understanding the role of teams and departments in developing work

engagement at both individual and team levels could help increase effectiveness. In addition,

little is known about the timespans over which interventions are most effective. Multi-wave

interventions which assess the aetiology and sustainability of interventions is needed to drive

the development of effective interventions.

As yet, we also still know very little about the relative importance of different intervention

components and delivery methods, or which components and delivery methods are essential

for interventions to have their desired effects. Carroll and colleagues (2007) stress the need to

conduct a ‘component analysis’ in order to determine the ‘active ingredients’ of

interventions. Beyond simply understanding the specific intervention foci of interventions

which are effective (e.g. job crafting, health promotion), component analysis can inform a

more nuanced understanding of the relative importance of aspects such as training, goal-

setting, or homework. This type of analysis needs to be applied to work engagement

interventions in order to uncover the most effective strategies.

Practical implications

From a practical perspective, this review suggests that interventions to improve work

engagement can be effective for some people, in some contexts. Practitioners can promote


43

effectiveness by assessing the need for interventions prior to implementing them. This

involves not only assessing whether work engagement is low, but also assessing the drivers

of work engagement. Much like a doctor might look for the causes of pain in a patient before

prescribing treatment, a work engagement intervention is only likely to be effective if there is

a proper diagnosis of the causes of poor engagement. In accordance with work engagement

theory, strategies can then be adopted, for example, to remedy the low level of particular

resources or the high level of particular demands. In addition, building strong support from

senior managers is essential for interventions, including ensuring that managers communicate

their support clearly to participants. Participants may be reluctant to give up working time to

take part in an intervention which they are not sure is endorsed by their manager. These

recommendations concur with those of other researchers (e.g. Briner and Walshe, 2015;

Nielsen and Randall, 2013; Stouten, Rousseau and Cremer, 2018).

Conclusion

Contemporary organisations need employees who are engaged in order to remain

competitive. This review set out to narratively investigate the specific intervention foci,

delivery methods, and content of work engagement interventions, their effectiveness, and

mediators and moderators underlying them. We revealed that interventions can be effective,

and highlighted several potential mediators and moderators. There is a paucity of knowledge,

however, on which components of interventions are most effective, and who these

interventions are most effective for. We hope our review stimulates research and discussion

on the topic, contributing to knowledge around how best to design and implement work

engagement interventions.

Disclosure statement


44

The authors report no conflict of interest.


45

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61

Appendices

Table 1: Key study characteristics (K=40)

Author Setting

(Country,

organisation)

Typea,

subtypeb

& style

Designc Study

durationd

Intervention details Effect on

WEe

Summary

effects on other

variablesf

1 Aikens et al.,

2014

USA;

Chemical

Company

HP; M;

Group &

individual

RCT; 3 6 months

(7 weeks)

AIM: To test whether a shortened

version of the standard MBSR

programme is effective for stress

reduction and increasing WE

DETAIL: Virtual mindfulness

sessions over 7 weeks; Homework;

Progress tracking survey; E-coaching

WE: + M: +

PR: +

WB: +

2 Angelo &

Chambel,

2013

Portugal;

Fire service

LT;

Group

CR; 2 4 months AIM: Stress management interventions

to increase firefighters’ social support

psychological well-being (burnout and

engagement)

WE: + JR: +

JD: -

WB: 0


62

DETAIL: 3 day stress management

workshop for supervisors involving

psycho-education; problem-solving

teams created to design and implement

action plans

3 Biggs et al.,

2014

Australia;

Police service

LT;

Group &

individual

NRC; 2 7 months AIM: To enhance upstream

organisational resources via a

leadership development programme

DETAIL: initial 360 degree review;

action-learning workshops over 5 days,

including education on leadership

styles & communication; practical

project

WE: + JR: +

JD: -

WB: +

OTHER:

Mediation

between the

intervention,

subordinates’

perceptions of

work-culture

support &

strategic


63

alignment, and

job satisfaction

& WE

4 Bishop, 2013

USA;

Community

nursing

PR;

Group

NRNC;

2

60 days

(30 days)

AIM: To assess the effect of a caring-

based programme for older nurses (45-

65 years)

DETAILS: Appreciative inquiry

approach; Three 8 hour day retreats;

off-site; reflection and sharing of

experiences; reaffirmation of core

values, purpose and commitment to

nursing

WE: +

VIG: +

ABS: +

None assessed

Chen et al.,

2009

Israel;

‘Public’

organisation

PR;

Group &

individual

CR; 3 10 weeks

(2 weeks)

AIM: To increase psychological

resources

DETAIL: 5 days of computer training;

resources workshop involving films

and active learning methods

VIG: 0 PR: +

WB: -


64

6 Cifre et al.,

2011

Spain;

Enamel

manufacturing

JR;

Individual

NRC; 3

9 months

(6 months)

AIM: To assess the effectiveness of a

work stress intervention (Team

Redesign) for increasing job and

personal resources, reduce job strain,

increase psychosocial well-being and

engagement

DETAIL: Action-Research approach;

Supervisor role-redesign based on a

one-to-one interview; Senior

management increased employee

awareness of job training they’d

received; Increasing job training

VIG: 0

DED: 0

JR: +

PR: +

7 Coffeng et

al., 2014

Finland,

Financial sector

JR; Group RMP; 3 12 months

(6 months)

AIM: To investigate the effect of a

combined social and physical

environmental intervention, as well as

the effect of each one separately

WE: 0

VIG: 0

DED: 0

ABS: 0

PERF: Mixed


65

DETAIL: The social environmental

condition involved group motivational

interviewing (GMI) by trained team

leaders (3 x 90 minute sessions) to

stimulate physical activity and

relaxation and enhance self-regulation

of behaviour; The physical

environmental condition involved the

creation of Vitality in Practice zones

(e.g. coffee zones, meeting zones)

8 Coo &

Salanova,

2017

Spain; Hospital HP; M;

Group &

individual

NRC; 2 3 sessions

(unreported

timespan)

AIM: To promote the psychosocial

health of workers

DETAIL: 3 x 150 min group sessions

involving 60 mins teaching, 60 mins

discussion & 30mins meditation /

midfulness; homework involved guided

WE: + M: +

WB: +

PERF: +


66

meditation using a CD, reading 7

worksheets

9 Ebert et al.,

2014

Germany;

Large Health

Insurance firm

HP;

Individual

RCT; 3 6 months

(7 weeks)

AIM: To investigate the acceptability

and cost effectiveness of minimal

guided and unguided internet and

mobile based stress management

interventions (iSMI) in employees with

high levels of perceived stress

DETAIL: Problem solving and

emotion regulation components;

psycho-education; 8 45-60 minute

sessions plus 8 further, optional

sessions (e.g. time management,

worrying, rumination, sleeping, social

support); Sessions included texts,

exercises, testimonials, audio and video

clips; Daily online stress diary

WE: 0 PR: +

WB: Positive


67

encouraged; homework; voluntary e-

coach

10 Hengel et al.,

2012

The Netherlands;

Construction

sites

HP;

Group &

individual

CR; 4

time

points

12 months

(3 months)

AIM: To improve the health and

ability to work ability of construction

workers

DETAIL: Individual training sessions

to lower physical workload; Rest-break

tool; Group empowerment sessions

WE: 0

VIG: 0

DED: 0

ABS: 0

JR: 0

JD: -

WB: 0

11 Herneaus et

al., 2017

Croatia; Public

sector

LT; M;

Group &

individual

NRC; 4 16 weeks

(6 weeks)

AIM: To explore the effect of a non-

participative, managerial job redesign

intervention on public sector

employees

DETAIL: Training workshops for 20

direct supervisors in job redesign;

supervisors decided and implemented

job design changes for employees

WE: + JR: Mixed

JD: +


68

12 Imamura et

al., 2015

Japan;

2 Information

Technology

companies

HP;

Individual

RCT; 3 6 months

(6 weeks)

AIM: To improve sub-threshold

depressive symptoms among healthy

workers

DETAIL: Web-based; Based on a

Manga (Japanese comic) story; Weekly

30 minute training sessions in CBT-

based stress management skills for 6

weeks; Involved self-monitoring,

cognitive restructuring, relaxation,

assertiveness, problem solving;

homework

WE: + WB: +

PERF: 0

OTHER:

Change in

depression

partially

mediated

between the

intervention &

WE

13 Imamura et

al., 2017

Japan;

Web survey

company

HP;

Individual

RCT; 3 4 months AIM: To assess whether regularly

accessing a psycho-educational website

providing mental health literacy and

CBT improved stress, depression and

WE.

WE: + (for

those low in

WE at

baseline)

WB: Mixed


69

DETAIL: Online; 90 webpages;

Psycho-education (e.g. on depression,

stress); 6 step CBT programme (e.g. on

cognitive restructuring, assertiveness,

and problem-solving skills); Voluntary

skills practice between sessions, with

self-help worksheets provided.

14 Klatt et al.,

2015

United States;

Hospital

intensive care

units

HP; M;

Group

RCT; 3 10 weeks

(8 weeks)

AIM: To determine the feasibility /

efficacy of a Mindfulness in Motion

(MIM) intervention to increase work

engagement & resilience and decrease

respiration rates

DETAIL: 8 week programme (1 hour

per week); Relaxing background

music; Contemplation and sharing of

thoughts; 15 min presentation each

week (e.g. on stress, relaxation, yoga,

WE: +

VIG: +

DED: +

ABS: +

PR: +


70

meditation); mind-body relaxation;

Homework

15 Klatt et al.,

2017

Denmark; Bank HP; M;

Group &

individual

RCT; 3 17 weeks

(8 weeks)

AIM: To examine the effectiveness of

MIM in a Danish population for

reducing stress and enhancing sleep

quality and WE

DETAIL: 8 sessions, incorporated

mindfulness, music, yoga, mindful

eating & sleeping & reflection;

Homework to practise using recordings

WE: +

WB: +

16 Knight, 2017 UK;

Hospital

JR; Group NRC; 2 12 months

(9 months)

AIM: To evaluate the effectiveness of

a participatory action intervention with

nursing staff on acute elderly NHS

wards

DETAIL: Participatory action

research; 5 core workshops of 2 or 3

days duration; Emphasis on

WE: 0 JR: 0

PR: Mixed

JD: 0


71

collaboration, sharing, problem-

solving, reflecting, and learning about

leadership, team working, and the

characteristics of wards which

demonstrate high quality care;

representatives from each ward invited

to core workshops; delivered by

experienced academic practitioners

17 Koolhaas et

al., 2010

The Netherlands;

2 locations:

University

Medical Centre

of Groningen &

The University

of Groningen

HP;

Individual

NRC; 3 12 months

(3 months)

AIM: To enhance the work

participation and sustainable healthy

working life of employees aged >45

years

DETAIL: Increasing awareness of

responsibility & behaviour in creating a

healthy and motivating work

environment; improving supervisor

support & use of HR professionals/

WE: 0

VIG: 0

DED: 0

ABS: 0

JR: +

PR: +

WB: -

PERF: 0


72

occupational health tools; Supervisors

trained to deliver workshops (two, 2

weeks apart) in problem-solving

strategies and supportive techniques;

Workbooks completed by workers to

identify problems to working

sustainably & create an action plan;

review of initial plan

18 Lases et al.,

2016

The Netherlands;

Teaching

hospitals

HP; M

Group

NRC; 2 3 months AIM: To assess the influence of Mind

Fitness Training (MFT; in this case,

Mindfulness) on care-related well-

being outcomes

DETAIL: Off-site 3 month training

programme; 5 sessions; Meditation;

Self-awareness; Discussion; Skills

practice encouraged

WE: 0 PR: +

WB: +


73

19 Leroy et al.,

2013

The Netherlands,

6 companies:

Tele-

communication;

Consulting;

Architecture;

Parliamentary

services;

Public services;

Health insurance

HP; M;

Group

RCT (2

sites);

NR (4

sites); 3

6 months

(8 weeks)

AIM: To assess whether authentic

functioning (being aware of oneself and

regulating oneself) mediates the

relationship between a mindfulness

programme and work engagement

DETAIL: 8 week, 3 hour Mindfulness

Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)

programme; Communication with

others revolved around sharing

experiences of meditation only; Formal

meditation (mindful body scan, yoga,

breathing); Informal meditation (e.g.

mindful coffee / lunch breaks, work

conversations etc); Homework

WE: + M: +

PR: +

20 Martinussen

et al., 2012

Norway; JR;

Group &

individual

NRC; 1 3 years

AIM: To examine if interprofessional

collaboration collaboration can predict

burnout, engagement & service quality

WE: + JR: +

JD: Unclear

WB: Unclear


74

Children and

adolescent

welfare services

among human service professionals

working with children and adolescents

DETAIL: Nine specific courses

offered by course providers; inter-

professional teams created to assess

and co-ordinate treatment programmes

PERF: -

21 Meyers et

al., 2017

The Netherlands;

Diverse sectors

(e.g. business,

government,

healthcare)

PR;

Group &

individual

NRC; 3 6 weeks

(Half day)

AIM: To determine if participation in a

strengths intervention increased

personal resources & well-being

DETAIL: Half day intervention;

homework to use and develop

individual strengths with the support of

a partner to check on progress

WE: 0 PR: +

WB: +

22 Naruse et al.,

2014

Japan,

Community

nursing

JR;

Individual

NRC; 2 6 months

AIM: To evaluate the effect of a skill-

mix programme on WE in home

visiting nurses

WE: 0 None assessed


75

DETAIL: Home visiting nurses

offered an assistant on community

visits

23 Ng, 2013 Hong Kong;

Elderly care

services

HP;

Group

NRNC;

3

2 months

(1 month)

AIM: A pilot study to assess the effect

of a daily body-mind-spirit practice

programme on burnout, daily spiritual

experience, & work engagement

DETAIL: Daily ‘Body-spirit-mind

Afternoon Tea’ programme (relaxation

programme); 15 minute daily small-

group meeting involving

slowing down (bringing concentration

to the here and now), golden sentence

sharing (positive sentence chosen for

reflection and discussion, & a group

ending ritual (e.g. singing, movement,

hugging) to stimulate positive emotions

WE: -

VIG: -

PR: Mixed

WB: Mixed


76

24 Ouweneel, et

al., 2013

The Netherlands;

Various

PR;

Individual

NRC; 3 16 weeks

(8 weeks)

AIM: To assess the effects of a

positive psychology intervention on

positive emotions, self-efficacy and

work engagement

DETAILS: Online; initial feedback

report; 3 or 4 assignments each week

focused on increasing positive

experiences at work, goal setting, and

resource building

WE: + (for

those low at

baseline)

PR: +

WB: +

25 Rickard et

al., 2012

Australia;

Hospital

JR;

Individual

NRNC;

2

2 years AIM: To evaluate an intervention to

reduce occupational stress and turnover

in hospital nurses

DETAIL: Nursing workload tool

implemented to facilitate workload

assessment & roster audits; Increased

staff numbers, supervision & access to

WE: 0 JD: +

WB: +


77

development and training

opportunities;

recruitment campaign

26 Sakuraya et

al., 2016

Japan;

Manufacturingco

mpany & a

psychiatric

hospital

JR; JC;

Group

NRNC;

3

1 month

(2 weeks)

AIM: To examine the effectiveness of

a job crafting intervention on work

engagement and psychological distress

DETAIL: Task, human relation and

cognitive crafting addressed in two 2

hour workshops; job crafting plans

created and reviewed

WE: + JC: +

WB: +

27 Schelvis et

al., 2017

The Netherlands;

Vocational &

Educational

Training Schools

JR; Group NRC; 2 24 months

(12

months)

AIM: To investigate the effect of an

organizational level participatory

intervention on employees’ health

DETAIL: Heurtistic Method (HM)

adopted. First 12 months involved

needs assessment (interviews, survey,

group sessions) and creation of an

WE: 0

VIG: 0

DED: 0

ABS: -

JR: Mixed

PR: 0

WB: 0

PERF: 0


78

action plan; second 12 months involved

implementing the strategies suggested

by employees under supervision of an

HM facilitator (e.g. goal-setting,

workload policy changes, defining

organisational goals).

28 Steidle et al.,

2017

Germany;

Administration

& knowledge

workers

HP; M;

Group &

individual

RCT; 2 4 weeks AIM: To investigate the energizing

potential of a respite intervention

DETAIL: A progressive muscle

relaxation group was compared to a

savouring nature group & a control.

Both interventions included

mindfulness. Initial group training was

followed by individual completion of

the interventions.

VIG: + WB: +


79

29 Steinberg et

al., 2017

USA; Surgical

Intensive Care

Unit

HP; M;

Group &

individual

RCT; 2 2 months (8

weeks)

AIM: Pilot study to evaluate the

feasibility of an intervention to increase

resilience to stress

DETAIL: Weekly 1 hour sessions

during work time involving discussion,

mindfulness, yoga, music. Homework

comprised 20 minute practice sessions

5 x week, facilitated by recordings.

WE: +

VIG: +

DED: 0

ABS: 0

WB: 0

PERF: 0

30 Strijk, et al.,

2013 (P)

The Netherlands;

2 academic

hospitals

(Amsterdam &

Leiden)

HP;

Group &

individual

RCT; 3 12 months

(6 months)

AIM: To evaluate the effectiveness of

a worksite health intervention on

vitality, WE, productivity & sick leave

DETAIL: Personal Vitality Coach;

Vitality exercise programme (yoga &

aerobics); Free fruit; Homework

involved physical activity

WE: 0

VIG: +

WB: +


80

31 Van Berkel,

et al., 2014

(P)

The Netherlands;

2 Research

Institutes

HP; M

Group &

individual

RCT; 3 6 months

(8 weeks)

AIM: To improve self-regulation, WE

and health

DETAIL: 8 week group mindfulness

training; Goal-setting homework;

individual e-coaching; Free fruit and

vegetable snacks; Buddy system;

Supporting materials (e.g. web page,

logbook)

WE: 0

VIG: 0

DED: 0

ABS: 0

M: 0

WB: 0

32 Van Gordon

et al., 2017

UK; Diverse

employee

populations

HP; M;

Group &

individual

NRC; 3 5 months (8

weeks)

AIM: To investigate the effect of

meditation awareness training (MAT)

on workaholism

DETAIL: A second generation

mindfulness-based interventions, MAT

involves sitting, walking & working

meditation sessions lasting 2 hours (45

mins taught; 45 mins discussion; 35

mins guided meditation); 50 min 1:1

WE: + WB: +

PERF: 0


81

support support sessions in weeks 3 &

8.

33 Van

Steenbergen

et al., 2017

The Netherlands;

Financial

services

JR;

Systemic

NRNC; 1 year, 1

month

(instant)

AIM: To investigate a transition to

New Ways of Working on employees’

job & personal resources, demands, and

well-being

DETAIL: Top-down changes involved

the introduction of flexible working,

‘hot desking’, new activity-related

workspaces, & new technology (e.g.

laptops, smart phones).

WE: 0 JR: Mixed

PR: 0

JD: +

WB: 0

34 Van

Wingerden

et al., 2016

The Netherlands;

Hearing

impairment

healthcare

JPR; JC;

Group &

individual

NRC; 3 1 year

(9 weeks)

AIM: To examine the impact of a JD-R

intervention on psychological capital,

job crafting, work engagement, and

performance

DETAIL: Exercises aimed at

increasing personal resources, job

WE: + JC: +

PR: +

PERF: +


82

resources and challenging job

demands; 3 training sessions

35 Van

Wingerden

et al., 2017a

The Netherlands;

Primary school

PJR; JC;

Group &

individual

NRC; 2 9 or 15

weeks (6

weeks or 12

weeks)

AIM: To investigate the effectiveness

of a combined personal and job

resource building job crafting

intervention compared to separate job

resource and personal resource building

interventions.

DETAIL: 6 week personal resource

intervention involved learning to accept

the past, appreciate the present and

look to future opportunities. Job

crafting involved job analysis

(Michigan Job Crafting Exercise) to

understand their job tasks, & their

strengths and weaknesses. Action plan

created with goals. Combined

WE: +

(personal

resources

intervention)

VIG: 0

DED: 0

ABS: 0

JC: +

PR: +

PERF: Mixed

OTHER: WE

mediated

between

PSYCAP &

PERF;

WE partially

mediated

between JC &

PERF


83

intervention involved personal resource

building followed by job crafting.

36 Van

Wingerden

et al., 2017b

The Netherlands;

Primary School

JR; JC;

Group &

individual

NRC; 3 1 year, 9

weeks

(5 weeks)

AIM: To investigate the impact of a

job crafting intervention based on job

demands-resources theory

DETAIL: 1st training session:

Michigan Job Crafting Exercise

completed to facilitate job analysis.

Action plans were created involving

proactive goal-setting aimed at

improving each of the four facets of job

crafting. 2nd session 4 weeks later to

review and reflect on progress.

WE: 0 JC: Mixed

JD: 0

PR: Mixed

PERF: Mixed

OTHER:

Indirect effects

between the

intervention, job

crafting and job

resources;

indirect between

the intervention,

job crafting &

performance


84

37 Van

Wingerden

et al., 2017c

The Netherlands;

School

JR; JC;

Group &

individual

NRC; 2 10 weeks

(6 weeks)

AIM: To investigate the impact of a

job crafting intervention based on job

demands-resources theory

DETAIL: 3 x training sessions (1 & 2

on Day 1, 3rd 4 weeks later). The

Michigan Job Crafting Exercise was

conducted. Exercises and goal-setting

was aimed at all JC components except

decreasing hindering demands due to

previous findings that this type is

unrelated / negatively related to WE.

Evaluation occurred in session 3.

WE: + JC: +

PR: +

PERF: Mixed

OTHER:

WRBN

mediated

between the

intervention &

WE

38 White et al.,

2017

Ireland; Hospital JR; Group NRC; 2 12 months AIM: A ward-based quality

improvement initiative (Productive

Ward) was introduced to help ward

teams improve the safety, quality and

delivery of care

WE: +

VIG: +

DED: +

ABS: +

Not assessed


85

DETAILS: Uses lean improvement

techniques to streamline and redesign

work and empower workers.

Developed by the UK’s National

Health Service Institute. Intervention

particulars not clear.

39 Verweij et

al., 2016 (P)

The Netherlands;

2 University

Medical Centres

HP; M;

Group &

individual

NRC; 2 8 weeks AIM: To assess the feasibility and

effectiveness of MBSR on burnout,

empathy, and well-being

DETAILS: At one site, an 8 weekly,

2.5 hour MBSR programme occurred

in the evenings and weekends, plus a 1

day silent retreat; Themes discussed

included sensations, feelings, thoughts,

burnout, conflict; At the other site two

full training days occurred with 4

evening sessions & a 1 day silent

WE: 0

VIG: 0

DED: +

ABS: 0

M: +

WB: +


86

aPR=Personal resource building; JR=Job resource building; LT=Leadership training; HP = Health promotion; PJC=Personal & job resource building

bJC=Job crafting; M=Mindfulness

cRCT=Randomised controlled trial; C=Cluster randomised; RMP=Randomised matched pairs; NR=Non-randomised; NRC=Non-randomised, controlled;

NRNC=Non-randomised, non-controlled; number refers to number of measurement time points; 1=post-intervention measurement

dInformation in parentheses refers to the length of the intervention; information not in parentheses refers to the length of the total study including all

measurement time points

weekend retreat; Homework involved

mindfulness practice

40 Vuori et al.,

2012 (P)

Finland;

Various

PR;

Group

RCT; 3 7 months

1 week

AIM: To increase career management

self-efficacy and preparation against

setbacks (career management

preparedness)

DETAIL: Workshops comprised

active learning, role playing, social

modelling, and gradual exposure;

delivered by trainers over five 4 hour

sessions or 3 full days

WE: 0 PR: 0

WB: 0


87

eWE=Work engagement sumscore; VIG=Vigour; DED=Dedication; ABS=Absorption; fM=Mindfulness; JC=Job crafting; JR=Job resources; PR=Personal

resources; JD=Job demands; PERF=Performance; WRBN=Work-related basic needs

NB: + =positive effect; - =negative effect; 0=no effect; Mixed=some positive, negative and / or no effects


88

Table 2: Summary of GRADE evidence statements

Evidence statement Summary

rating

Summary supporting

statement

1 There is initial evidence that

work engagement interventions

are effective, with the strongest

evidence for overall work

engagement

Initial 50% of all studies had a

positive effect on work

engagement or a sub-

component, including 6

randomised studies and 11

non-randomised but controlled

studies, suggesting higher

quality designs. Inconsistent

results across the whole body

of studies prevents stronger

conclusions.


positive changes in job resources

(especially autonomy & social

support), job demands

(especially workload), personal

resources (especially self-

efficacy & resilience), and work-

related needs, mediate between

work engagement interventions

and work engagement (including

Initial Two studies reported

significant effects on job

resources and engagement, six

studies reported the same for

personal resources and

engagement and one for job

demands and engagement.

Four studies observed a

positive effect on job crafting

and engagement and work-


89


rating

Summary supporting

statement

subcomponents), with the

strongest evidence for job

crafting interventions

related needs mediated

between the intervention and

engagement in two studies.


improved well-being mediates

between interventions and work

engagement, with the strongest

evidence for mindfulness

interventions

Initial 17 studies reported positive

effects on well-being

variables, ten of which also

reported increased

engagement. Three studies

(Imamura et al., 2015; Meyers

et al., 2017; Steidle et al.,

2017) tested mediation

relationships between

interventions, well-being and

engagement. Four studies also

noted a statistical increase in

mindfulness and engagement.

4 There is initial evidence to

suggest that the specific

intervention focus moderates the

effectiveness of work

engagement interventions, with

the strongest evidence for job

crafting and health promotion

Initial Six of the nine effective health

promotion interventions were

randomised and controlled,

with large sample sizes in

several studies. However,

results were inconsistent

across the whole body of


90


rating

Summary supporting

statement

interventions, including

Mindfulness.

health promotion studies and

implementation issues may

have obscured true effects in

some cases. Four of five job

crafting interventions were

effective. More evidence is

needed to confirm these

results.

5 There is promising evidence that

intervention delivery method

moderates the effectiveness of

work engagement interventions,

with the strongest evidence for

interventions including both a

substantial group and individual

component

Promising 67% of group and individual

interventions reported positive

effects, three of which were

randomised and controlled.

Seven further studies were

controlled, suggesting higher

quality designs.

6

There is initial evidence that

employee participation alongside

strong manager support

positively moderates the

effectiveness of work

engagement interventions

Initial 85% of effective studies

involved participation of some

sort, including training,

reflection and support groups,

collaborative discussion and

problem-solving, and group

exercise. Three studies


91


rating

Summary supporting

statement

reported poor manager support

which hindered success.


bottom-up interventions are

more effective than top-down

interventions for increasing work

engagement

Promising 75% of successful

interventions were bottom-up

with all but two studies

containing control groups,

suggesting better quality

evidence. 50% of bottom-up

studies showed no effect.

8 There is inconclusive evidence

that interventions targeted at

employees low in engagement

will be most effective

Inconclusive Two studies with relatively

large sample sizes found a

significant, positive effect for

those initially low in work

engagement (Ouweneel et al.,

2013; Imamura et al., 2017).


poor intervention

implementation, particularly in

terms of poor fidelity,

compliance, and participant

satisfaction, negatively

moderates the effectiveness of

Promising Six studies discussed

implementation in relative

detail, with three publishing

separate papers on the topic.

Several other studies briefly

commented on some issues.

Taken together, it is possible

that implementation issues


92


rating

Summary supporting

statement

interventions on work

engagement

may have hindered

intervention effectiveness


national and organisational

factors moderate the

effectiveness of interventions on

engagement

Initial Factors included

organisational restructuring,

concurrent projects, cross-

contamination between

groups, and economic

downturn. Inconsistent results

were reported by studies,

preventing conclusions

regarding the degree to which

these factors may have

hindered success and masked

true effects.


93

Figure 1: A diagram indicating potential relationships between interventions, mediators, moderators, and work engagement


94

Figure 2: A PRISMA flow diagram (Liberati et al., 2009) displaying the results of the

systematic literature search and indicating why records were excluded at each stage of the

process

Initial search results up to December 2016:

Scopus (k=83); Web of Science (K=959);

Medline (k=409)

(Total k=1451)

Duplicates removed (k = 611)

(k=997 remaining)

Records excluded

(k=1401)

Titles and abstracts screened

(k=1488)

Full-text records retrieved

(k=87)

Additional 2017 search results:

Scopus (k=306); Web of Science (k=301);

Medline (k=6)

(Total k=613)

Full-text records excluded (k=47)

No measure of work engagement (k=12)

Work engagement measure does not

meet inclusion criteria (k=7)

No intervention implemented / cross-

sectional (k=8)

Protocol stage only (k=7)

In a foreign language (k=4)

Did not meet inclusion criteria (k=9) Final number of included records

(k=40)

Duplicates removed (k=122)

(k=491 remaining)

EFFECTIVENESS OF WORK ENGAGEMENT INTERVENTIONS

95

Figure 3: A harvest plot indicating the nature of the evidence for interventions with at least one

positive effect on work engagement or one of its sub-components (k=20); NB: Each bar

represents one study; the height of the bar indicates study design (3=randomised; 2=non-

randomised, controlled; 1=uncontrolled); solidly shaded bars indicate top-down interventions;

textured (dotted) bars indicate bottom-up interventions; T=interventions involving a training

component; O=interventions involving other kinds of participation (e.g. participative action

research, group reflection); JC=Job crafting intervention; M=Mindfulness-based intervention

0

1

2

3

Personal resource

building

Job resource

building

Leadership

training

Health promotion Job and personal

resource building

O

O

T

TM TJC T

O

T TJC

TJC

T

T

O TM TM

TM TM TJC


96

Figure 4: A harvest plot indicating the nature of the evidence for interventions with at least one

negative effect on work engagement one of its sub-components (k=2); NB: Each bar represents

one study; the height of the bar indicates study design (3=randomised; 2=non-randomised,

controlled; 1=uncontrolled); solidly shaded bars indicate top-down interventions; textured

(dotted) bars indicate bottom-up interventions; T=interventions involving a training



0

1

2

3

Personal resource

building

Job resource building Leadership training Health promotion Job and personal

resource building

O

TM


97

Figure 5: A harvest plot indicating the nature of the evidence for interventions with no effect

on work engagement or one of its sub=components (k=18); NB: Each bar represents one

study; the height of the bar indicates study design (3=randomised; 2=non-randomised,

controlled; 1=uncontrolled); solidly shaded bars indicate top-down interventions; textured

(dotted) bars indicate bottom-up interventions; T=interventions involving a training



0

1

2

3

Personal

resource building

Job resource

building

Leadership

training

Health

promotion

Job and personal

resource building

J

MM

MM

T T T TM TM T

TM TM TJC O O

O

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